I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

I Bite The Bullet, Subscribe to SD Union- Tribune

I finally subscribed to the San Diego Union- Tribune, but I still can't get to the commentary I wanted to read.I wrote earlier I didn't want to pay for any more papers because I can't afford to subscribe to every newspaper I read. I thought the Union- Tribune said you could get a few free views per month without paying so I tried to ration my reading there as I do with the L.A. Times. Only problem was, even the first time I tried to access a free read I was sent to their subscription page.I really wanted to read some of their stuff if only because one of my favorites, Steve Greenhut, writes for them now. Plus, every now and then they have a interesting news story. This morning I finally decided to take the plunge and subscribe, if only because I noticed that an online subscription costs just $3.49 a month (still, enough of those can add up).I still can't read my Greenhut articles. First I had to go back to the web site and figure out how to log in. Once I did, I checked on the Opinion link to find the commentary. Greenhut wasn't listed on their opinion page. So, I went back to Rough and Tumble where I'd originally found the link, and clicked on the link again. Nope. It just sent me back to the subscription page saying my subscription wasn't active despite already being logged in.I guess I'm not going to read that commentary this morning. I used their customer service page to send in my issue. Hopefully they'll understand what the problem is. And I thought the Times- Standard web site was bad!

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I really didn't want to subscribe to any more papers but, the way the Sacramento Bee is going, I might cancel my subscription with them. They suspended their comments over a month ago saying they'd start them again after they figured out what system they wanted to use.No comments yet and other papers have redone their comments in much less time. I'm beginning to think they like the quiet. The Bee is a pretty blatant left wing paper with stories and commentaries reflecting that. It seemed 9 out of 10 of the comments were critical of them.I also noticed the letters to the paper in favor of ending comments seemed to be from lefties. I don't think they liked the criticism either. Maybe the Bee decided it's easier for them to write what they want without any dissent? Hey, nothing wrong with a little conjecture, especially after this much time.It almost doesn't seem worth subscribing to the Bee without comments as they gave me twice as much to read. I do read a lot of their stuff regularly and Dan Walters' commentaries are usually a must read (but I can sometimes find his stuff elsewhere). Whether I'll drop my subscription to the Bee I'll decide later, but that money might better be spent subscribing to the L.A. Times. They put out more news and allow comments.

2 Comments:

i can tell you how i use to steal articles from the ts when they would pop the sub info up to block out the page. yes, i claim to be above those evil ones who steal, which is my calling the kettle back.

i'd open a window with a blank page in my email.

i'd go to the ts article i wanted to read.

i'd quickly copy the text and paste it into my blank page. i'd then increase my knowledge base as i read the pilfered article.

articles published by other news agencies the ts published...copy the article heading and paste into your internet search window to read that article from the suggested list that comes up.

just to let you know, after months of my stealing the ts articles, they flipped a switch that allowed me to seemingly copy but when i went to paste nothing would appear on my blank page.

my guess is they turned on some copy write program to help me stop stealing and start saving my soul from damnation.

for the last few months though, i've been able to peruse the ts unbridled.

i considered that a personal win in my battle to keep updated with local news while keeping my bank acct in the black.

so, shhhhh...i'm sure if the ts gets a whiff of this info they will find a way to once again to block my need for news in this unethical way.

I, too, have on occasion copy and pasted articles to e-mail if it was from one of those sites and I only rarely visited the site so it wasn't worth subscribing to.

As an aside, that post I made yesterday about McElory's commentary, it wasn't a pay site but I couldn't copy and paste the article to this blog. I had to type it in.Don't know how they do that.

The Union- Tribune doesn't even let you see the article so you can copy and paste.

As far as viewing the T-S site for free now, I believe they give you a certain number of free views before the paywall kicks in. Maybe you're still using your free views?

The L.A. Times gives something like ten or fifteen free views, so I just hold off and don't read most articles unless I'm really interested and feel I haven't read enough stuff from them to worry about the paywall.

The Press- Democrat offered less free views. I forget how many but I rapidly ran out of free ones there so just subscribed.